good morning. i'm chris jansing. the new jobs numbers are better than expected. 146,000 jobs were added last month, dropping the unemployment rate to 7.7%, down from 7.9 in october. this is a four-year low. the timing is interesting, obviously, just as we're learning that fiscal cliff negotiations are now a party of two, the president and the speaker. the "new york times" reporting that house speaker john boehner wants to speak only to president obama out of public view. though we've just learned that boehner is holding a news conference at 11:00 this morning eastern time. the fight, though, still very public. vice president joe biden is meeting with a middle class family. and yesterday president obama met with a virginia family. tax hikes for the rich are

nonnegotiable. >> just to be clear, i'm not going to sign any package that somehow prevents the top rate from going up for folks at the top 2%. but i do remain optimistic that we can get something done that is for families like this one. >> joining me now is barry, msnbc political contributor and editor for grio. hello, guys. >> perry, i'm wondering if these new unemployment numbers add to the president's leverage? >> i think they do. the big thing is the election. but the jobs numbers suggest that the economy is doing well and it cuts against the republican argument that raising taxes on the rich with would hurt the economy and the economy is fragile. the numbers though that the

economy is not fragile and that would improve the economy's leverage. he's still doing so many public events. he is trying to use that public pressure to sort of force the republicans to cut a deal. >> doing this public stuff but at the same time having these private talks with the speaker and david axelrod talked about what the president and speaker might be doing behind closed doors and the reasoning behind it. let's listen. >> both the president and the speaker are very fluent in the basic numbers. they have been living with them for some time now. so as i said, i don't think that there's a lot of mystery about this. the politics has to be traverse. they've got to get through the rocky shoals of grover norquist. >> does that make it easier to keep politics out of it? >> i think it helps for the two men to make a deal that might

work for all sides. i sound like i'm a broken record for myself but i'm still trying to find out if both parties are trying to find a win-win deal, something that they can both sell as a win or if one or both is simply trying to get everything they want and let the other guy -- >> but can the other side do that? it would seem if the momentum is with the president, he would be the one more likely to dig in and say, i'm going to take a clear win. >> true. and it's possible that the president, given how the election went and given the fact that a couple of years ago he had to give what the republicans wanted on the taxes issue might say, look, i've had enough. i'm not doing that anymore. however, if there's going to be a deal that's going avert the cliff, the speaker can cannot sell just anything. he's going to have to get entitlement reform or significant spending cuts that are guaranteed. otherwise, his people will baulk. he will go in the next year with a weakened position. that doesn't mean that the

republicans are going to take any deal because they can either be in political trouble inside the party and outside or just outside and that's why the speaker needs something he can take to his people and say, we've wanted these things for years. here's what we have to give and we're going to look ridiculous if we say no. >> it's almost like the president is giving him political coverage because he's not letting up on the pressure. again, yesterday, going out in virginia and sitting with an average middle class american to press for the expiration of tax cuts on those making over $250,000 a year. several republicans are starting to back off on their stance and are urging colleagues to just get it done. let me play it for you. >> everyone in washington knows what the offer is. you just have to get enough people to accept the answer and get it done. >> is he right, perry?

it's not physical but when? >> i think he's right about that. you're seeing a lot of republicans, billy kristol and others say that there's going to be about $1 trillion in tax increases. president obama won the election. he's pressing on that. now we're seeing tom cole of oklahoma and other republicans saying that let's get through this process and move on to the next issue. a lot of them have seceded this fight. president obama has a lot of refer rage. >> a lot of members in congress are talking about this but they don't really have any influence in it just looking at outside. not everybody is happy about it. bernie sanders, the independent from vermont, says that the senate needs to find a way to

make its self more relevant and, you know, it seems like their question, david, is is this any way to run a democracy? >> this is the only way to get a deal. the members have a right to vote against anything that they are against. but there's no way that you can have a negotiation between two competing sides if you have one individual on one side and 400 individuals on the other. it just doesn't work. so what the speak ser going to have to do is go back to his members, harry read harry reid will have to go back to his members and say, can we vote for this. >> always good to see you, congressman, good morning. >> great to see you, chris. >> so are talks going on between speaker boehner and president obama, in a way does it make it seem like con are gres gress is irrelevant. jeff sessions has repeatedly

made the point and i want to play something for you that he said yesterday. >> we all know what the plan is, what the scheme is, the strategy is. it is to be meeting in secret and then plop down on the floor of the senate at the last hour, some sort of coerced agreement that all of the senators like lemmings are supposed to vote for. >> is that what is going on here? some coerced agreement that you're going to have to vote for? >> i wouldn't describe it as a coerced agreement. but you can't have 500 people in the room negotiating an agreement. so, yes, we have our leadership, they sit down with the president, they hammer out a deal, they come back to us. our opportunity for input in this process is with our leadership. we have caucuses multiple times each week. we express to our leaders, this is what we want to see. this is what we will support. we do not want to see action on this or be pressed on this.

don't come back to us with a proposal on this. that's the way that we can influence the ultimate shape of the deal. i'm not disturbed by the fact that now we have the president and the speaker sitting down or talking on the phone with each other. >> do you think it's a good thing? >> i think it's probably the only way that we can progress. they do have to have closed communication with all of the leadership because ultimately it's more than those two men who are going to have to sell this to the democratic and republican members of the house and senate. but i'm not troubled by the negotiating strategy and i think we are seeing progress. i think we have moved -- >> let me ask you what is going on with the other democrats. we sit down a couple times each week, we talk to them about what we're comfortable with. obviously the mantra of the democratic party has been, you have to let these tax cuts on the wealthy expire. but beyond that, are there points of contention where the democrats are quite united on what must or must not happen?

>> yes. i think the democrats are quite united, that the upper income rates have got to expire. that social security is really not an issue here. social security didn't contribute to the deficits and debt. i don't think there will be any appetite whatsoever for touching social security. but those points i think democrats are quite unified on. the area where i think there is room for negotiation and compromise is, the rates are going to go up. i think we all recognize that. will the rates go up completely? are there other ways where they can come up somewhat short of that but make up the revenues by reducing deductions from higher income families? >> so the deal that we're talking about is halfway between the current rate and the former rate? >> well, i wouldn't say halfway. but i would say, as long as you can get to the revenues, if you can increase the rates and reduce the deductions for upper income households, you can get to the same dollar number and i think there's a willingness to entertain that. it does tend to complicate the

tax code. the simplest way is simply to raise the tax rates up to the clinton levels and, you know, we do have a strong interest in simplifying the tax code. but if that's politically for difficult, there's a willingness to retain the deductions that they could utilize. >> let me ask you about that. another interesting scenario played out with mitch mcconnell, essentially fill lee bust sistering his own bill. he says it has to guarantee that there won't be another debt ceiling crisis. but could that be where we're headed? >> well, it's certainly possible. it would be a terrible outcome and i think you're hearing business leaders weigh in and say, we don't want to go through this debate only to be followed by another big fight over the debt limit. and we just can't afford every year, every 18 months to have a debate about whether we honor the full faith and credit of the u.s. government. that's no way to run the country. >> what do you think the chances

of that happening? >> it's possible. one of the things that the republicans might get as part of this package is another opportunity to make their case around the debt ceiling. but there ought to be some limit on it and i like the president's proposal that basically requires a two-thirds vote to overcome the president's decision to raise the debt. that still gives members a chance to weigh in, still requires a vote on the debt limit. it doesn't let lawmakers off the hook but it also means that you can't hold the country's economy and full faith and credit hostage every time you want to demand more in cuts or tax increases. >> congressman adam schiff, thank you. >> let me play for you a little exchange from yesterday. >> is there an objection? >> madam, preserving the right to object. matters of this controversy, what we're talking about is a perpetual debt ceiling grant. >> i guess we have a filibuster

of his own bill so i object. >> is there objection to the original request? >> yes, i object. >> objection is heard. i got whiplash. >> one of the more interesting moments, perry. what is the average american sitting become and watching c-span going to think of that? >> i think they are confused about what is going on. mitch mcconnell was trying to show that there's a divide among the democrats about how they raise the debt ceiling. there are 51 democrats for getting rid of congressional authority on the debt ceiling as well. they have been pretty unified. every democrat in the senate and the house is for about $1 tr$1 trillion in tax increase while the president has some divided on tax increases, some aren't,

it's been challenging because democrats in the senate and the house are with him right now. >> does it tell us anything about where this whole debt ceiling is or whether it could be another nasty fight? >> we're headed to another nasty fight. no party would give a president of the opposite party control over the debt ceiling. congress doesn't like to concede its power anyway and that's why there's no way the president is going to get what he wants, i predict, on the debt ceiling which means next we're we're going to have a debate and there's going to be nor negotiation. >> i hope you're wrong. good to see you. have a good weekend. hillary clinton is defending u.n. ambassador susan rice calling her a colleague. she has come under fire about the attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi. >> our understanding evolved over time and we've done our best to keep the american people and the congress informed. that was her goal.

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the reason the experts thought the jobs numbers would not be good is simple, the impact of hurricane sandy. but 146,000 jobs were added and the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.7%. but stalled negotiations in washington have a lot of employers and taxpayers still concerned about what's to come. joining me now is jim, economics correspondence for "economic journal." jim, good morning. >> good morning to you. >> these numbers are much better than the early estimates. what's behind them? >> well, they are better than we thought they would be because it doesn't have any impact of

hurricane sandy. there wasn't a big displacement of people looking for work. now, let's get a couple of things down here, though, to start with. there are still 12 million unemployed americans. the unemployment rate fell for reasons that we don't like very much. people leaving the labor force. this is a better report than we expected it to be but still not a great report. >> now the question is, what goes on with the fiscal cliff? could the number get any better? >> i think that is the hope on wall street and republicans that have been talk ug for years and of the business community and to start spending down their profits and there might be a better sort of ofavalanche, if u will. the question is, what does that

deal have to look like to unleash those hopes? it probably has to be something permanent and not a punt. >> the republicans talked about two things, though. one, as you say, is about certainty and they say that businesses need that certainty to start hiring but they've also warned that if tax rates go up on the wealthy that would have have a negative impact. >> i think republican orthodoxy is bad. if you raise taxes on the wealthy, absolutely, it's going to drag on growth a bit. but the hope is among the analysts is that the positive

impact of getting certainty and beyond just certainty, seeing that washington can avoid a debt limit fight, that might help boost confidence that would be very conducive to job creation. >> you bring up a very important point because we were talking to a congressman about the possibility of a debt ceiling and talking to david from role call roll call. he thinks a deal might be likely. could that not just offset but the negative impact would be greater if we find ourselves in a big debt ceiling battle. >> to the sense that there's economic data on this uncertainty question, it tracked over the last few years. the biggest spike by far came during the last debt limit fight. i would suspect if you're going to see another time when the united states might not pay its creditors or might not make payments to people who need social security or military

contractors or anything like that, if that's thrown into question again for a protracted amount of time, yeah, i think that's going to be bad for the economy. >> jim, it's always good to see you. have a good weekend. >> good to see you. thank you so much, chris. a 7.3 earthquake hit japan and triggered a tsunami warning. it shook buildings in tokyo, look at that, and brought a small ocean surge to shore. so far it hasn't caused any damage or irregularities at nuclear plants. there are still frayed nerves after last year's earthquake and tsunami that killed nearly 16,000 people. twins. i didn't see them coming. i have obligations. cute obligations, but obligations. i need to rethink the core of my portfolio. what i really need is sleep. introducing the ishares core, building blocks for the heart of your portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus which includes

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to live on food stamps for the week. here's something you don't see every day. >> that is president obama's chief campaign adviser, david axelrod, getting his mustache shaved, first time in 40 years he's been without his mustache. he offered to shave if he could raise $1 million for epilepsy research. he reached his goal thanks to president obama and donald trump. so here is the before and the after. what do you think? and finally this. >> three, two, one! ♪ >> the first family flipped the switch to light up the national christmas tree. 20,000 people showed up. and if you read only one

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position than a single united states senator. i wouldn't feel good about living if we didn't have so many new, bright young conservatives in the senate. >> joining me now is steve and republican strategist and form are campaign manager for huckabee, jim saltsman. >> hello. >> pmr. demint has been trying o leverage his position as the tea party's uncompromising man in the gop and that his effort has failed or stalled. >> i don't think i agree with "the washington post" at all. i think he's had a great impact across the country and i think the move to the heritage makes a lot of sense to him personally. he always said he was going to be a two-term senator. had he a term less.

he left early. he wasn't going to be a career politician. i think this makes a lot of sense for senator demint in a lot of ways and i think it's good for the conservative movement. >> he has supported candidates against more moderate republicans in primaries and then his candidate lost in the general election, including obviously richard mourdock in indiana, christine o'donnell, ken buck in colorado. what do you think is going to be the influence now for jim demint going into the heritage foundation? >> i think he's been a singular failure when you look at the candidates that he's endorsed. they have all lost. >> well, that is not entirely true. he says marco rubio was the first one that supported me. >> he doesn't have a good win-loss percentage. beyond that, i think it's just another sign of the disarray of the republican party and the tea party movement. i think they don't know what

they stand for or what to do. barack obama says his higher popularity, republicans are completely not unified. they don't know which way to go forward. i think they have soul searching to figure out what they want to stand for and in reality what they need to do is be more balanced and more inclusive and change their views on some things if they are going to be successful. >> do you think it's possible that he saw the writing on the wall, chip? the l.a. times calls senator demint's a sign of bad time for the tea party. allen west, joe walsh of illinois lost. the paper also points out that the house leadership removed three conservatives from three committee assignments. what does this mean not just for the conservative movement but the tea party in particular which seemed to take so many

hits after this election? >> i think actually the object sit. i think he is doing this to expand his influence. with what we've seen with what is going on, he was influential with his pac. now he's got the think tank where they can get more involved in more races if that's the thing he wants to do. i think he saw this an opportunity that he was only going to serve one more term in the senate. the heritage foundation was there since 1977. that job doesn't can come open very often. i think it's a great fit and a personal decision for him. >> it's up to south carolina's governor now, nikki haley, to choose an interim replacement for senator demint and she says, number one, i will not take the appointment myself. number two, i will appoint a person who has the same philosophy of government that jim demint and i share. what do you think? how significant is this appointment and is there any big

controversy over who she's going to pick, steve? >> you know, that's a republican party problem. again, i don't think it really matterses because she's going to appoint a conservative republican to serve in the senate. >> you know, chris and jim demint would say, this is someone who was very good as the conservative party but never passed a significant piece of legislation. >> well, i don't think he was a very effective u.s. senator and probably the happiest person in washington is mitch mcconnell that he is leaving because he caused all kinds of problems internally in terms of getting things done. >> chip and jim, good to see you both. thanks for coming on. >> thank you, chris. lawyers for george zimmerman have filed a lawsuit against nbc universal for their coverage of the february 26th, 2010, shooting death of trayvon martin. in a statement, nbc universal, the parent company of this

network says, quote, we strongly disagree with the accusations made in the complaint. there was no intent to portray mr. zimmerman unfairly. we intend to vigorously defend our position in court. the death toll from that powerful typhoon in the philippines has passed 500. another 400 are missing. rescue remembers are digging through the mud and debris left behind from tuesday's storm. in egypt, opposition groups are calling for the resignation of the president morsi. he says that he's deeply concerned about the depths of protests in egypt. he's calling for dialogue but has not backed down from last month's power grab. today marks the anniversary of a day that will live in infamy. more than 2300 service members and 49 civilians were killed when the japanese attacked that launched world war ii.

coming up, with private missions to the international space station and a so far successful mission to mars, what is the future of nasa? we'll talk to jim about whether nasa is losing its lead in the space race. the risque bestseller "fifty shades of grey" has big holiday bonuses for every single employee. mandy drury is here. how much green is grey bringing in? >> 5,000 shades of green. random house had its corporate christmas party and the ceo stood up and promised every single employee a $5,000 bonus to celebrate what i guess has been a very profitable year, largely thanks to the "fifty shades of grey." and the cheering went on for

minutes. this book has topped the "new york times" paperback bestsellers list for 33 weeks. and it's not just "fifty shades of grey." random house has had other big hits as well. they are going to be issued in the next paycheck and here's a little factoid for you. apparently the first book in the grey series was originally published by a really small publishing house in australia. i did not know that. >> and i just realized that i read two of those books, "gone girl" and the grisham book. if those employees want to parlay their bonuses, i guess they won't have to go to a casino anymore. zynga wants to offer real money gambling. >> right. >> so what are the chances that that's going to happen? >> well, weap don't know at thi

stage but you have seen how zynga's stock has dropped. they want to try their luck with real money in the u.s. its applied for a license from the nevada gambling regulatory but it also comes as zynga struck a deal to offer poker and casino games for real money in the uk and that's going to start neck year. and if it is a new avenue of growth it would be good. because its own growth has kind of stalled on lackluster interest, like with mafia wars 2 is shutting down on facebook and 13 other games have been dropped as well. we'll have to see if it works. >> cnbc's mandy drury, thank you. >> thank you. top five viral videos of 2012. remember the father who shot his daughter's laptop after he read

her facebook post complaining about her posts? and the space jump 24 miles above the earth. there it goes. number three, the bullied bus monitor who was flooded with more than $700,000 in donations from around the world. number two, gangnam style that how has over nine million views. and the number one viral video of the year, kony 2012. this clocked 100 thourk views in just six days bringing a view to outside central africa that no one knew anything about. reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news.

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that when he cexposed to oh cer medications can interact with grapefruit. a new weapon is being launched today in the fiscal cliff fight. three major unions are financing tv ads with a message asking viewers to call their elected including senator warner and claire mccaskill. here's the message from the national education association. >> cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from medicare and medicaid will short-change the people who need it the most. so if you don't want seniors to come up empty, call senator warner and tell him, don't make a bad deal that cuts our care. >> joining me now is the federal government affairs director, chuck loveless. >> good to see you, chris. >> you're targeting four politicians here, senator warner

and claire mccaskill and two others. why these four? >> we are very concerned that it could include many cuts in medicare, medicaid, and social security. with regard to the two republican house members, both of them have expressed some interest in including revenues as part of an overall deficit deal so we're trying to encourage them in their thinking in this way. >> these ads are running in those states. you also have a spanish version. you have a national day of action scheduled on monday with 200 events throughout the country. clearly you want to send the message that labor didn't fold its and karl rove is doing a series of ads. do you think that they can be effective or do they cancel each other out. >> well, we have remained in campaign mode since the election because we think the eaches involved in the deficit

negotiation are extremely important to middle-income americans. we're trying to break through the fog of all of the political ads that have been done during this campaign season by doing something a little more, shall i say, tongue in cheek. so i think our ad is going to ask cut through that fog. i would say we're going to be outspent ten to one by the other side, maybe 20 to one. but we're in the game here. we have major mobl lilization gg on in the states. the ads are just a piece of that. >> let me ask you about entitlements. there's going to be conversations going on. we don't know what is going on in that room between speaker boehner and president obama. but at some point that conversation about medicare and medicaid is going to happen and what concerns you the most and are there any adjustments that can be made given where the finances are that you would find acceptable? >> well, first of all, we do not believe there should be any cuts to beneficiaries in these

programs. i would remind everybody that we have already taken $1.7 trillion in domestic cuts as part of the budget deal this past summer. we want, first, to see the wealthy americans to pay their fair share. the president has been very firm on that. we do not see a need for beneficiary cuts. >> a lot of talk last year, obviously, and earlier this year focused on where labor was going, some of the battles out there. so i would be remiss if i let you go without asking you about the right to work battle that is happening in mesh began. huge protests in lansing over these two bills, the right to strike and picket would be limited, paying dues into the union could not be a condition of employment. let me ask you about your reaction to this. >> well, we're very concerned about this. i find it almost unbelievable that after this election and the clear mandate that americans sent to protect the middle income people, to allow tax cuts for the wealthy to expire and

here we see an effort to totally undermine the rights of ordinary people. so we're very concerned about this. >> chuck loveless, good to see you. thanks so much. >> good to see you. today's tweet of the day comes to us from rebecca, capitol hill reporter for buzz feed. she tweets, david axelrod's mustache is dead and general motors is alive. i have a cold... i took dayquil, but i still have a runny nose. [ male announcer ] dayquil doesn't treat that. huh? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus rushes relief to all your worst cold symptoms, plus it relieves your runny nose. [ sighs ] thank you! [ male announcer ] you're welcome. that's the cold truth! you notice something different about these toys? the prices are so low. are we dreaming? i got an idea. kick me in the shin. if i feel it, we know the prices are real. yep, they're real. we've got more rollbacks on toys all december. wait, was that real?

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we are expecting to see speaker john boehner and it's getting interesting because there was a report in the "new york times" that the negotiations are negotiations for two, the speaker and president obama, that they were working through a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. now a number of democrats have been pushing back saying we have not been excluded. nancy pelosi says she has spoken

to the president. there are also a number of republicans saying that they are involved. michael steele, who was a spokesman for the speaker said, if we are going to solve this problem, the white house and speaker have important roles. the bottom line is that it's probably the president and speaker doing the heavy lifting on this but we will see what speaker boehner has to say. we'll have that for you live at the top of the hour. in the meantime, amazing new video from nasa. you may have already seen these incredible pictures. look at this. this is the earth at night illuminated by city lights across the planet. but there's this new report about whether nasa can maintain its leadership role in space exploration. let me bring informer space shuttle engineer, james oberg. it's been a while. thank you, james. >> hello, chris. >> the council is saying that

nasa is at a crossroads and that they have an uncertain future. the funding is flat and getting money from congress seems unlikely. what's your reaction to this report? >> looking at this report and the comments made in it, i'm almost thrown back to the space race days. it's almost like nostalgia when we had a two-way race to a goal and we could design our vehicles just for that goal. that was a tightly focused program. when you look at nasa's program today, it's not nearly as focused. i think that's a good thing, though. because we've gotten to broader areas of capability. so when they refer to some problems that they see at nasa, to me those are problems of not aging but of maturing of the space program. >> as you know, this is a time when we're in a big fight over money and who's going to get money for what and we just saw ads about whether senior citizens are going to be able to pay for their glasses and

education. what are the options for nasa to make its self irrelevant amid this fight that we're seeing in washington. >> a lot of things that nasa is doing is not as visible either. so people have the impression that nothing is going on. the problem of having a more diffuse set of goals is that it's harder to keep the team focused and the public will focused on it. that seems to require more care and feeding. in terms of the technology, developing capabilities to send people beyond the earth orbit and into deep space on a fairly permanent basis and having rockets able to do that are the key to doing that and that is in the program. that is now being worked on. it's just perhaps faster with more money but it is still progressing. >> well, there are these ambitious goals that nasa has. talk about going to mars. having said that, at the same time, we were hearing today about this colorado-based company. they just said yesterday that they plan to send privately funded and built spacecraft to

the moon by 2020. they say 15 to 20 nations are interested in those missions and it's much cheaper than nasa can do it for. >> as space technology advances, the things that we did five, 10, 20 years ago become cheaper. the technology is better, the energy, all of the construction designs are better so that you can do these things that once cost 26 billion and those kind of dollars from apollo, you can do it for less money now. but you keep the dollars going for new technologies, things that are harder to do, things that we couldn't do in the '60s and '70s, and '80s and build some of these new boosters. then you will do what nasa perhaps always intended to do, go beyond the edge and create a base of technology that someone

else can come by and do space taxis to orbit or to the moon and private access. that is a sign of what they should be doing in the future, which is keep pushing new technologies, keep the funding high enough to keep the right people working there. >> that's a key, isn't it, jim? i mean, it was kind of a cool thing. i mean, when you got into space engineering, i mean, if you told somebody you worked at nasa or for heaven's sake, you were an astronaut, it was a really cool job. is the problem now that space travel and nasa isn't so cool anymore? how do you keep that moving forward? >> it's a problem around the world. the u.s. does not have that problem. the best and brightest still want to come work on the space program, either for nasa or

other companies. other countries have a more serious problem. i've seen in russia, for example, they can't get people to come work in the space program. so in terms of where we're heading, compared to other countries, we need to stay on a direction and need to have resolve to keep political support behind it and remind the public once in a while that we are moving towards new goals, as you see with the pictures that you showed. >> yeah, those pictures are pretty awesome. james oberg, always great to see you. have a great weekend. >> thanks, chris. that wraps up this hour of "jansing & co." thomas roberts is up next. when c to provide a better benefits package... oahhh! [ male announcer ] it made a big splash with the employees. [ duck yelling ] [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. ♪ ha ha! in that time there've been some good days.

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